Knox then declared that he must be going home and offered to escort Medora. She agreed and having thanked Tom for his hospitality and hoped that he might be privileged to accept it again at some future time, he took his leave. On the way home he spoke to his companion.
“Your mother’s a wonderful woman, Mrs. Dingle,” he said. “I see these things from the outside and I’m properly astonished at her cleverness.”
“So she is,” admitted Medora. “But I wish she wouldn’t work so hard all the same. She does her day at the Mill and then comes back home and instead of getting her proper rest—well, you see what it is.”
“She’s like the mainspring of a watch,” declared Philander. “’Tis a most delicate contrivance, yet all depends upon it; and if I may say so, as an outsider, you can see with half an eye that her relations depend upon her for everything.”
“They do—they do. If anything happened to mother, I don’t know what would become of Aunt and Uncle—let alone all the children.”
“They don’t know their luck,” he said, and Medora agreed with him.
“I’m glad you see it. I’ve often thought that—so have other people. My mother at Priory Farm is like a cheese-cake in a pigstye.”
“Strong, but not too strong. She must have great affection for them to stand it.”
“Once a man offered for mother,” said Medora; “and, at the first whisper of it, Uncle Tom and Aunt Polly pretty well went on their knees to her not to leave them.”
“I can well believe it. It didn’t come to anything, however?”